The Year They Burned the Books

They all got into Terry’s car, squeezing into the front seat.

“Brandon Tomkins.” Terry turned the key in the ignition. “I bet. Brandon and his buddies, Al and Sam …”

“Sam’s only a sophomore,” said Jamie.

“Yeah.” Terry gunned the car angrily as he backed it up. “But he’s Brandon’s cousin or something. He acts like he is, anyway. Maybe he’s got a crush on him. Maybe we should send him a note.”

“What are we going to do?” Jamie asked.

“Maybe nothing,” Terry said. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.”

“We could report them,” Ernie suggested. “I’m sure it was Brandon.” His voice was calm now, but very quiet. “And probably Al and Sam. And Karen. I guess word got around—I broke up with Vicky,” he added, turning to Jamie.

Jamie, surprised, glanced over at Terry, who nodded, grinning. “So that’s why …”

“That’s why we asked you to meet us,” Terry said. “So we could tell you.” He looked happier than Jamie had ever seen him, despite the notes in their lockers.

“I had to do it,” Ernie explained. “It—it was crazy for me to go out with her. Crazy. I tried to like, you know, touching her, but … It was no good. She’s really nice, but I kept thinking of how much I really wanted to be with Terry. Who I want to love,” he added carefully. “Who I do love.” He put his hand on the back of Terry’s neck; Jamie saw Terry reach up and squeeze it.

She turned away, looking out the window.

“We can’t let it get to us.” Terry pulled the car into the parking lot at Sloan’s Beach. “Those signs and stuff. If we do, it’ll get worse.”

“Ms. Hinchley would approve of not reacting,” Jamie said wryly.

Ernie went silently to the edge of the lot, where he stood staring out over the water. Low, easy swells rolled toward shore, breaking gently on the rocks; a few herring gulls called raucously to each other in the chill November air.

“He hasn’t told me anything about him and Vicky except what he just said in the car,” Terry said in an undertone to Jamie. Then he went to Ernie, put his arm around him, and for a moment they talked quietly.

Jamie watched them both as they walked back. “It’s hard doing nothing,” she said carefully, not wanting to intrude on their privacy by asking more about Vicky. “It’s our move,” she went on. “They must be waiting to see what we’ll do. If we refuse to play, it won’t be fun for them anymore. Maybe they’ll just drop it.”

“Maybe,” Ernie said, his eyes still on Terry. “But what if they don’t?”

Terry thrust his hands into his jacket pockets. “If they don’t, then we should do something more active,” he said. “You know, fight back. As soon as they do something else.”

They didn’t have long to wait. The next morning was quiet, except for curious glances and a few snickers, which Jamie tried her best to ignore. Ernie looked dazed as he moved through the halls, and Terry’s face was set and grim. Jamie considered telling Tessa, but decided against it; it didn’t seem fair to involve her or any of the others.

But at lunch, when Brandon shot them a couple of loud fag jokes as he passed the newspaper table, Cindy said, “Wow, Brandon’s in fine form today. What’s going on?” and Tessa, eyebrows raised, turned to Jamie. “Anything happening that the rest of us should know about?” she asked—and Terry explained.

“Shut up, Brandon,” Cindy called as Brandon passed again, firing another salvo, and Brandon called back, “Watch out who you associate with, babe. They say people are known by the company they keep.”

Jack made a face. “Yeah, that’s right, Brandon. Look at the lowlife you’ve got around you. Phew!”

“Easy,” Terry told them. “Let it go.”

Nomi, Jamie noticed, had sat rigidly in her chair during the whole exchange; she and Clark were having lunch together, as they’d often done recently, but today they were several tables away.

The taunts continued all week, and on Thursday morning, there were lavender bows on their lockers—Jamie’s, Terry’s, Ernie’s, and, this time, also Tessa’s. “Kind of pretty,” Terry remarked, removing his. “I’d almost like to keep it.”

“Why not?” Jamie said, but she ripped Tessa’s off angrily, glad she wasn’t there to see it. Terry put his back.

Ernie walked away.

Terry thrust two sheets of copy paper into Jamie’s hand. “Sports feature,” he said, and went after Ernie. Jamie nodded, and decided she had just enough time to drop the feature off before classes started, so she went to the newspaper office and unlocked the door, then stooped to pick up an envelope that lay on the floor, as if someone had slid it underneath. On it was written:

TO THE DYKE EDITOR OF THE SCHOOL FAG RAG

Her hands shaking, she put Terry’s feature on her desk and ripped open the envelope:

TO THE DYKE EDITOR OF THE SCHOOL FAG RAG: WARNING!

This school doesn’t like what you’re doing. You are IN DANGER. You had better stop publishing so much filthy pro-homosexual sicko queer stuff in your paper. We DON’T LIKE IT!

If you and your queer staff don’t watch out, you will be in BIG TROUBLE!

THIS IS NOT A JOKE!

The Straight Majority

It was all Jamie could do to sit through her first class, and she spent the whole period alternating between rage and fear. But by the time the period ended, she’d made up her mind what she wanted to do, and she hurried down the hall to the principal’s office, where she plunked the letter down on Mr. Bartholomew’s desk. “I’d like to print it,” she said, “because I’d like people to see how sick some kids are. If we don’t print it, whoever wrote it will go around saying we’re cowards or something.”

Mr. Bartholomew shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to print it, Jamie.”

“I was afraid you might say that. But …”

“Then I don’t need to explain.”

“Well, yeah, maybe you do.” She sat down.

“It’s my old argument about the school’s being polarized. I don’t want to risk making that worse. Let me handle this, okay? It’s pretty obvious what the source of it is. And I think we can make sure those threats aren’t carried out. Let me keep the letter.” He paused. “Jamie? Okay?”

Jamie hesitated. But she realized there really wasn’t anything more she could do. “Okay,” she said reluctantly.

Mr. Bartholomew smiled. “Good. As a matter of fact, there’s already something that I think may help. I’ve just arranged for a special speaker to come the week before Thanksgiving to try to calm things down, or at least make people think twice before they hit out at other people. He does workshops about prejudice. In fact”—Mr. Bartholomew gestured toward a table under his window, on which lay a pile of white cardboard oblongs covered with blue lettering—“I’m about to ask for volunteers to put up some posters. Do you think you and your friends might …”

“Okay.” Jamie took the posters, and tried to hide the fact that she was still boiling mad.

And underneath that, scared.

Early Friday morning, Jamie met Terry outside school, and by the time the first bell rang, the whole school was papered with posters:

PEACE TO ALL

The Pre-Thanksgiving Assembly Will Be Devoted to

Bringing Wilson High’s Diverse Communities Together:

Male, Female, Black, White, Gay, Straight

All Religions, All Nationalities

Let Us Bury Hate and Become a Whole School Again

Safe for All

Friendly to All

SPEAKER: HOWARD ARNOLD

COME ONE, COME ALL!

By lunchtime, all the posters had been torn down.

“We’ll make more,” Jamie said grimly. “And we’ll keep making them and putting them up for as long as we have to.”

But next time, the assembly posters were replaced by huge ones with stark black letters on red oaktag:

THE EVIL IN WILSON

A FORUM

TIME: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16

7:00 P.M.

PLACE: MEETING ROOM

LORD’S ASSEMBLY CHURCH

EVERYONE WELCOME!

WE MUST DEVELOP STRATEGIES FOR FIGHTING THE

EVIL

THAT HAS COME TO OUR COMMUNITY

IN THE FORM OF OBSCENE BOOKS,

SEX EDUCATION COURSES,

SUPPORT OF SICK, “ALTERNATE” LIFESTYLES (HOMOSEXUALITY),

WEAK SCHOOL SUPERVISION, ETC.

“Two can play that game,” Terry said angrily, reaching for a poster.

But Jamie pulled his hand back. “Forget it. I don’t think Mr. Bartholomew will let these posters stay, anyway. It’s not a school event.”

Jamie, it turned out, was right. But the “Evil in Wilson” posters soon appeared all over town, even though they were banned from school property. The pre-Thanksgiving assembly posters were torn down once more, until Mr. Bartholomew called Brandon, Al, and Sam into his office and threatened to suspend them—and finally, on November 16, Wilson’s students crowded into the auditorium and heard the speaker talk about prejudice and cruelty, diversity and love. Matt Caggin was there, sitting with Mr. Bartholomew; and Cindy and Jack, in the front row, applauded especially loudly at every possible opportunity—almost, Jamie thought, as if they were trying to lead the others in the audience.

But after the meeting, when she and Terry and Ernie went to Terry’s car, there was a piece of paper folded under the driver’s side windshield wiper. FAG SINNERS REPENT! it said. REPENT OR MEET YOUR DOOM!